Exhibition
BOS is a powerful, easy to use tool for creating online surveys. Designed for academic research, education and public sector organisations, BOS enables you to build, distribute and analyse your surveys, as well as collaborate and benchmark across multiple organisations.
BOS is used by over 300 different organisations in the UK and internationally.
BOS is used to run several national surveys, including Vitae’s own Careers in Research Online Survey and Principal Investigators and Research Leaders Survey. BOS is also used to run the Higher Education Academy’s Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES), Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) and UK Engagement Survey (UKES).
In 2014, HESA announced that the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey will be moved to BOS from 2015/16.
Sign up to a free 30-day demo account at www.onlinesurveys.ac.uk
The Brilliant Club
The Brilliant Club (www.thebrilliantclub.org) is an award-winning education charity that recruits, trains and places doctoral and post-doctoral researchers into non-selective state schools to design and deliver a series of tutorials based on their own research. In doing so, our tutors support small groups of outstanding pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and ambition to apply to, and succeed at, highly-selective universities. Tutors are trained by qualified teachers and public engagement specialists to design tutorials that effectively communicate their research to non-expert audiences and create well-pitched resources and handbooks. Our researchers also develop their teaching, professional and leadership skills while gaining experience of the wider UK education system, helping to prepare them for encounters with undergraduates. In 2014/15, The Brilliant Club worked with researcher development departments, widening participation teams, careers consultants and centres for doctoral training to place 450 PhD tutors to work with 6,800 pupils in 300 schools in London, the East of England, the West Midlands, the South East, North East, North West and South West.
The British Council and Euraxess UK
The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. We are a Royal Charter charity, established as the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. Our 7,000 staff in over 100 countries work with thousands of professionals and policy makers and millions of young people every year through English, arts, education and society programmes.
Euraxess UK is part of the European Commission’s Euraxess initiative, a service network involving 40 countries across Europe. Euraxess aims to remove the barriers to free movement of knowledge within Europe, to strengthen cross-border mobility of researchers and staff, and to provide researchers with better career structures.
Euraxess UK can help find funding to bring researchers to UK institutions, and give them information about practical matters when they arrive. The Euraxess UK website has information for incoming international researchers, as well as a searchable database of international funding opportunities. For more information visit www.euraxessuk.org or follow us on twitter www.twitter.com/EuraxessUK
The Daphne Jackson Trust
The Daphne Jackson Trust is a charity founded in 1992 to help scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians (STEM) return to their careers after a break of two or more years, taken for family, caring or health reasons. The Trust offers flexible part-time paid fellowships hosted by universities and research institutions around the UK. The fellowship scheme offers STEM professionals who have had a break from research, the opportunity to balance an individually tailored retraining programme with a challenging research project in a suitably supportive environment. Whilst the Trust provides the infrastructure and expertise to recruit and retrain fellows, financial support is provided by external sponsors such as the research councils, universities, learned societies, charities and industrial partners. The unique combination of mentoring, retraining and research these fellowships offer has led to an impressive success rate – 7 out of 10 fellows remain active in research after completing their fellowship, and many go on to gain permanent research-based positions. To date, the Daphne Jackson Trust has helped over 285 talented researchers return to their chosen careers.
FindAPhD.com
For over 10 years FindAPhD.com has been leading the way in PhD student recruitment. FindAPhD lists details of graduate research projects and programmes from more than 400 universities and research institutes, and attracts over 400,000 monthly visitors worldwide. Our prices start from just £50 to advertise a research project, and our bulk rates allow you to add all proposed projects within a department for a largely discounted rate.
To find out how we can help you to raise the profile of the PhD opportunities available at your university please visit www.FindAPhD.com/providers
If you're looking to recruit quality PhD candidates, why not join us at FindAPhD LIVE! in the Guild Hall Cambridge on Wednesday 28th October or at Oxford Town Hall on Thursday 29th October between 11am and 4pm. The main exhibition will be accompanied by a day-long talk's programme, advice lounge, and 'Meet the PhD student' sessions. Stand prices start at just £400 +VAT.
To find out more, or to book your stand now please visit www.FindAPhD.com/providers/fairs
The Idox Group
The Grants arm of Idox has worked with organisations across the UK for over 30 years to provide Europe's leading grants and policy information service.
Its suite of products includes:
- GRANTfinder 4 Education – the UK’s only grants and policy information service that offers a one-stop shop for key projects such as widening participation and business spin-offs as well as R&D funding opportunities (www.idoxgrantfinder.co.uk/education)
- RESEARCHconnect and RESEARCHconnect International – complete, specialised funding solutions dedicated to the provision of research funding opportunities (www.researchconnect.co.uk and www.researchconnect.eu)
Reporting in excess of 13,000 funding opportunities – from local to European funding and wider international programmes – Idox’s funding solutions allow clients to maximise their chances of success through the use of tools that enable them to identify relevant opportunities and manage, track, save and share content with colleagues and professionals outside of their organisation.
Idox representatives will be on hand at the Conference to deliver stand demonstrations and provide full information on the products.
jobs.ac.uk is the leading global jobs board for research, science, academic and related professions. We advertise over 55,000 vacancies each year for leading organisations worldwide including universities, research institutions, charities & commercial organisations.
Plus, did you know we also have a specialist Careers Advice section developed for people working in academic and research roles? From CV tips and templates, to interview advice and career planning ebooks, you are sure to find something to help you manage your career.
You can also sign up to receive jobs directly to your inbox – complete our easy 2-step registration form today to help you find your perfect job. Visit www.jobs.ac.uk or come along to our stand to find out more.
Piirus
www.piirus.com
Piirus is a free networking website for the global research community, developed by the sector, for the sector. It enables researchers, research managers and administrators to identify and connect with 1000s of collaborators across all disciplines, sectors, institutions and geographies. Piirus helps researchers connect with each other based on the ideas and collaborative needs they have right now so that they can develop ideas, enrich their research, progress projects and make a real impact.
KKI Associates - Entrepreneurship and Transferable Skills Training
KKI Associates trains, inspires, and motivates students and HEI staff in entrepreneurship and commercial skills. The skills they learn in these workshops will also improve their employability and improve their understanding of factors affecting research 'impact'.
KKI training has a high impact and a distinctive training style.
We try to:
- start at the basics
- go very fast
- use interaction and case studies, incentives and prizes
- demystify and explain jargon
Because KKI has been working in this area for 20 years, we can show examples of people having been directly inspired towards entrepreneurship. For a cohort of (typically Ph.D and young post-doc) staff who receive KKI commercialisation training, we have a reasonable estimate of the outcomes:
- the portion who will consider starting some form of commercialisation activity within a few years
- the portion who within 4-5 years will have started companies and obtained significant grant and investment funding
- the portion who will have achieved 'commercial success' - a thriving company or perhaps an investor exit (which can take 10 years from that first training programme)
Stats on the last group suggest that about 1 in 150 trainees goes on to 'become a millionaire' - slightly better, we believe, than the chances that the average student has of becoming a professor!
Come to our stand and:
- see some videos of training workshops in operation
- meet some recent students whom KKI has trained and mentored to success in the BBSRC Biotechnology YES competition
- enter our 'build a tower, build a team challenge' - prizes will be awarded at the end of the day!
Nature Masterclasses
Since 2011, Nature Masterclasses has been helping institutions provide their students and researchers with training in scientific writing and publishing (known then as Macmillan Science and Communication Workshops).
Now, for the first time, the face-to-face training courses are being supplemented with online training. Through on-demand videos and live video events, researchers and students learn how to turn great science into great manuscripts - directly from Nature journal editors.
With institution-wide access to the training, institutions are able to support their researchers’ professional development and optimise the quality of their scientific research output.
To learn more, or for a free institutional trial, email masterclasses@nature.com. And look out for Masterclasses.Nature.com, launching in August 2015.
Complementing the training, are NPG Language Editing, an English language editing service, and MSC Scientific Editing, an expert editing and advice service, specialized in the natural sciences.
PhD Manager is a new solution for managing your doctoral research programme. An online easy-to-use solution for researchers, supervisors, and administrators to keep track of the records, processes and events in your doctoral college.
Progress Platform
ProgressPlatformTM is an interactive, web-based system for recording, monitoring and reporting on student progression and skills training activity. The system is extremely flexible and can be tailored to the specific needs of each institution. The range of uses extends beyond postgraduate students, as undergraduate, CPD, other taught students and research staff can also benefit from the system’s flexibility.
ProgressPlatformTM is transparent and easy to use, offering the potential to enhance data quality, promote student-supervisor interactions and stream-line processes for administrators and supervisors. Key benefits of the system include a booking and management area for skills training activities and a single point of truth for progression, bringing together information from numerous sources/databases.
We maintain a dialogue with our customers and are constantly developing upgrades in response to evolving requirements. Key elements of the Vitae RDF are embedded in the skills training functionality and there are plans to develop this further in the future. Another recent development is the roll-out of a bespoke reporting module which enables administrators to create reports on any information in the system.
Please visit our trade stand to discuss your requirements and book a demonstration, at no obligation or cost.
Research Fortnight
The publishers of *Research Fortnight provide you with Total Funding Awareness via their online platform *Research Professional.
A subscription to the service includes:
- Thousands of open calls for all disciplines from over 8,000 funders
- A searchable database of previous grant winners from key funders across the globe
- Authoritative news, analysis and comment from a large global team of journalists
- Proven know-how on research funding bodies, programmes and policy development to help in the application process and win more proposals
Developed over the last 20 years to tackle the real needs of researchers. Hundreds of institutions across the world consider *Research Professional to be the vital ingredient in building a successful research enterprise.
Vitae conference attendees can sign up for a free trial by visiting http://info.researchprofessional.com/free-trial
Researchers in Schools
Researchers in Schools (www.researchersinschools.org) is a salaried teacher training programme exclusively for researchers with a doctoral qualification. The two-year programme is designed to ensure that the researchers have the time and resource to maintain an academic profile as they train to become excellent classroom teachers. Over the two years trainees will achieve Qualified Teacher Status and complete the requirements of the Newly Qualified Teacher year through a structured programme of school based training sessions, lesson observations, supernumerary teaching and independent teaching. Researchers in Schools is a partnership between two education charities (The Brilliant Club and Challenge Partners), two OFSTED-rated ‘Outstanding’ teaching schools (Lampton School and George Abbott SCITT) and King’s College London. The programme aims to increase subject expertise, promote research and champion access to higher education in non-selective state schools. This September, 80 high-calibre PhD graduates, selected from more than 650 applications, will be placed in schools for the programme’s second year. As well as training as classroom teachers, they will have one day per week 'off-timetable' to pursue academic research, receive bespoke CPD training and deliver a range of subject enhancement activities. Applications for the 2016/17 academic year will open in October.
SkillsForge
SkillsForge, which has been developed by the University of York over the past 12 years, is a commercially available software as a service for HEIs. SkillsForge provides the functionality to reflect, review, record, monitor and report upon postgraduate student progression, skills acquisition and general development activities. It possesses a fully integrated course booking system, skills framework, bespoke forms and workflows and integrates with existing student records and HR systems. Through innovative collaborative design, our aim is to guide, support and evidence the success of HEI students, staff and supervisors.
Speakezee
Speakezee.org® is a free website which brings together event organisers and academic speakers. With its easy-to-use and elegant platform, organisers can search for academic speakers by topic, location or keywords. Academics at all levels recognize that public engagement is an essential part of their role as open researchers and demonstrating pathways to impact. Launched in Feb 2015, it is already the world’s largest academic speaker website supported by Bristol University with partners including the British Council and the National Centre for Coordinating Public Engagement.
The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE)
The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) is an international learned society concerned to advance understanding of higher education through the insights, perspectives and knowledge offered by research and scholarship.
It is a specialist publisher of higher education research, through journals such as Studies in Higher Education, Higher Education Quarterly, Research into Higher Education Abstracts, and a book series. The Society also supports special interest networks for researchers, and it organises an annual higher education research conference and a parallel conference for postgraduate and newer researchers each December .
To find out more, including membership details, visit www.srhe.ac.uk
SRHE colleague on the stand - Nicola Manches, Administration Officer
Sumac
“Developed and managed by the University of St Andrews, SUMAC is an online mentoring and coaching platform which provides effective data management for scheme coordinators, while streamlining scheme administration. SUMAC has a range of features allowing hosting of multiple schemes, each tailored to meet specific needs. SUMAC helps scheme coordinators to manage scheme membership and supports the whole scheme lifecycle, from sign-up, through matching, and the creation and management of partnerships.
The development of SUMAC has been based on St Andrews’ experience with mentoring and coaching over 10 years, and on the participation of Universities across the UK in the SUMAC Beta testing programme.
Currently there are over 150 diverse schemes hosted on SUMAC across more than 30 UK institutions.
Cost-effective access to different levels of service is now available by subscription, with free 3 month ‘full-access’ trials offered to all institutions.”
For over a decade, ThinkWrite has delivered 1-day training courses enabling participants to communicate with greater effectiveness and efficiency, whether writing or speaking. At the centre of ThinkWrite’s process is a need to 1) understand the expected structure of a particular document, 2) specify the key message that needs to be conveyed and 3) determine specific requirements of key decision makers.
Last year around 1000 participants attended our courses, with almost all giving good to exceptional feedback scores. In fact, many participants explicitly state that these were the most helpful, informative and enjoyable courses they had ever attended. Participants range from post-graduate students to senior academics and team leaders, and courses are frequently booked both by central training co-ordinators, individual departments and specific research teams.
All ThinkWrite courses are delivered in an interactive style and anticipate that participants will actively join in during sessions. Most courses are delivered to 12-15 participants, giving space for small amounts of one-to-one interaction between presenter and participants. On occasions we deliver to conference groups, as well as providing flexible one-to-one Skype consultancy.
UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE)
UK Council for Graduate Education is the leading independent representative bodyfor Postgraduate Education in the UK. Its mission is to be the authoritative voice forpostgraduate education in the UK, providing high quality leadership and support to itsmembers to promote a strong and sustainable postgraduate education sector.
UKCGE promotes:
- the interests of graduate education across all disciplines
- quality measures for graduate education and research conducted in HEIs
- the effective leadership and management of postgraduate students
- the effective provision and funding of graduate education
- the status, education and training of postgraduate students
- equal opportunities for students in graduate education
- the professional development and status of staff and supervisors in HEIs
The Council is:
- an authoritative voice for the HE sector on postgraduate activity in the UK
- a developer and communicator on policy relating to postgraduate education
- a developer and promoter of best practice in the delivery and administration of
- postgraduate programmes
- a provider of appropriate information, services and publications for these issues
UKRSA
The UK Research Staff Association (UKRSA) was established in 2010 to provide a collective voice for researchers at Higher Education Institutions across the UK
UKRSA is supported by, and works closely with, Vitae. It aims to empower research staff to take control of their own careers and contribute to policy.
What we do is:
- support local and regional research staff associations and networks * contribute to national policy, through active representation on committees and steering groups, and by advising Vitae
- interact directly with research funding bodies
- provide a UK voice on the International Consortium for Research Associations (ICoRSA) * provide resources such as our Guide to Research Staff Associations * undertake and report on research projects into the impact of Research Staff Associations and postdoctoral funding
- engage members of research staff in their professional and career development